More records on ScotlandsPeople

The ScotlandsPeople website has added index entries for births, marriages and deaths in 2014. ScotlandsPeople says: “You can now view the updated indexes for statutory records until the end of 2014, and in addition to this, [view online] images for births until 1914, marriages until 1939 and deaths until 1964. You can also purchase an Extract, a fully certified copy of a birth, marriage or death certificate [for the later records that are not online], for £12.”

Records of Seamen’s Deaths

ScotlandsPeople adds: “A complete record of the deaths of Scottish seafarers from late Victorian times until 1974 are now available to search on ScotlandsPeople.

“The 14,000 new records are monthly returns of the Deaths of Seamen, which list Scots along with other crew members of all nationalities who were serving on British-registered vessels between 1909 and 1974. Amongst the new entries are William M Murdoch, the Dalbeattie-born First Officer who died on the fateful maiden voyage of RMS Titanic in 1912, and John Thompson, a seaman from Annan who perished aged just 15 on the Lusitania, torpedoed by the Germans in 1915.

“Also newly-released online are Returns of Deaths at Sea (also known as the ‘Marine Returns’) for the years 1902-1905. These years complete the series which is already on ScotlandsPeople from 1855 onwards. They list Scottish seamen and passengers who were reported to the Registrar General for Scotland as having died. When ships sank there were often fatalities, but most of the deaths in British waters were of fishermen who drowned.”